Beneath the Surface
by Runt the Brave
Summary: "Always never felt so hollow." Angsty oneshot discussing why "always" is a figment of storybook characters' imaginations. Suicide-death fic. Semi-in protest of post-Always fluff and the general belief that the show would not be good if it were not a cop procedural. Mostly because I needed a break-up fic don't know why, 'cause I've never been in a relationship . Hate away.


_A/N: Yes. I'm sane. You don't have to worry about me, or try and confine me to a psychiatric hospital. Castle, Beckett, and all the wonderful aspects of the show have no relation to me. Please do not read this fiction if it could prove unhealthy for you to do so._

There was an improbability to always.

No. That's not right.

Always was simply impossible.

It had never been always. He didn't know her deepest, darkest secrets, the ones that could hardly bear to come to life. He didn't know that the reason she didn't cook was because she was too afraid, too afraid that she might use the knives and the cleavers and those sharp, delightful little tools against herself. He didn't know that she locks up her service piece, each night, every night, for her own protection. She barely trusts herself to handle the pain in the daylight. The night is the every lasting torment. He knows plenty of her tendencies to run away. He knows plenty of her problems with her mother's death, with her father's alcoholism. He didn't know about the abortion. He didn't know about the one that lived. He knows about the scars. He'd never dream that they were self-inflicted.

Always wasn't really working out on his end of the spectrum. He'd never done 'always' before. In his mind, the one night stands, the commitments with no real desire were simpler. It was easier without the baggage. His lifestyle, however exaggerated, however understated, was a magnet for baggage and nightmares of the long past. She knows about Alexis. She doesn't think that the girl might not be his daughter. Genetically, she's not. It's the one secret – the only secret, in all likelihood – that Meredith managed to keep. As such, it's yet another secret that the others don't know. And while Alexis Agatha Castle may not be the only child he's never made a commitment too, she's the only publicly acknowledged child of Richard Edger Castle. Even his name is a lie, and always can't function on half-truths.

They tried. Well, she tried. He stood on the sidelines, watching her fight an uphill battle without reaching out or throwing her a rope. She fought Sisyphus's fight while he waited to be handled a sledgehammer. Summer, it seemed, was their curse. The first year, he'd smacked her with a blunt fist of truth and she wasn't ready. He'd lied to her, yet another mistruth, yet another misdirection. He'd disobeyed her, going directly against her orders, but – more hurtful – against her wishes. The second summer, well, that was almost worse. He'd used frivolities against her, with his one-night stands and that emotional baggage. He'd left her without the strength to make the climb, and so the rock crushed her. Her spirit could not recover.

That left the others to try.

The sideline players – friends, children, parents – watching and understanding as the delusion of always splintered, another crack closer to shattering.

Whispered promises, one to another, kept their surface relationship alive. But when the surface runs out, when the pain digs deeper into the darkest of cracks, _always_ will try to flee.

They fought. Well, he fought. She managed to push her rock to the top of the hill and when she reached out and asked for help, all he could do was turn away and bury himself into the responsibility of meaningless. The rock started to slip. Her resolve weakened. And he dared, when heated words were exchanged, when she dared demand that he actually _listen_ to her, for once in his life, blame her for not climbing the hill long enough. She threw a book at his face, drove him to the emergency room, and left. He still came into work, if one would call it that, but it didn't work. The fractures had cut too deeply. An eighty-three percent solve rate dropped to seventy-nine, to seventy-five. The dream team – the one with the hardest cases, with the most gruesome killings – was failing. The whisper pool sparked more fights, until she told him to leave. And he didn't come back.

Always never felt so hollow.

From seventy-five to seventy-four. To seventy-one. To sixty-three. To barely above fifty percent.

She watched herself, as if from a distance, staring into the broken faces of the girls she couldn't help, of the cases she hadn't managed to solve. Those who knew her best – which really wasn't anything at all – expected an unsolved case to drive her away. They solved the case that made her quit. The double-murder-suicide that they hadn't cracked for three days did her in. The utter devotion, the false love that she saw in the broken man's dead face… he'd killed his girlfriend and her cousin, believing that it wasn't really her cousin at all. It was a devotion that she desperately wanted. That she knew she needed and that she feared she'd never find. The whisper mill was silent, as the monolithic symbol of justice and courage and determination walked out of the captain's office without a gun – finally, without that temptation – without a badge. Gone from the force. She didn't stop to clean up her desk or gather her belongings. As her heals clipped away, everyone knew that she was gone. For once, always was real. For once, the whispers didn't manage to restart.

When the sideline players – brothers, fellow cops, partners – cleaned out her desk, they found five pictures stuffed in the back of her desk. One was almost expected: she and he, from the surface years, when the deep pain hadn't set in yet, and the lies hadn't torn them apart. They smiled at each other. The second captured a mother and a father, with a brown haired little girl swinging between them. That was from the earlier years in her life, when 'always' wasn't even in question, because her mommy and her daddy would always be there, right? The third is a surprise: a younger version of her, holding a small, wrinkled child. There was no love in her face, only anguish and fear. Scrawled on the back: _Rose. No matter what they name her. Rose_. The next two pictures again surprised those who saw them. Head shots, obviously – to those with experience – from the foster system. On the back: names, ages, adoptive parents, biological parents. Him. On a sticky-note attached to one of the pictures was simply scrawled _we've both lied._

One of the players tried to contact her. He tried to ask because he wanted to understand, but she had fled. She had fled and she wasn't looking back. They told him, tried to get him to search for them. But he refused them. When they gave up, he did look, but he didn't find anything. And he didn't find a reason to keep looking.

It was long ago, in their timelines, when they first promised always.

She took up cooking again.

Alexis Agatha Castle went to college and tore away his reason to stay sane.

It was June 9th when Katherine Beckett forced her shaking, bleeding hand to close around the handle of a knife, bring it to her own throat, and kill herself. She was found by motel owner and never positively identified by Tennessee policy. Just another Jane Doe who'd taken her own life.

It was July 18th, when Richard Castle, in that hazy state of irresponsibility, crashed his Ferrari into an eighteen wheeler and was killed on impact. His death was blamed on the truck driver, who spent twelve months in prison for vehicular manslaughter. His books sold like wildfire.

Always hadn't worked for them in life.

Always couldn't work for them in death.


End file.
